


Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter Notes

by karoffelbrei89



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Harry Potter meta, Meta, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, chapter notes, cross-posted from tumblr, hp meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:38:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 16,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karoffelbrei89/pseuds/karoffelbrei89
Summary: Part of my great Potter re-read, chapter notes to every book. Crossposting from tumblr (https://hufflly-puffs.tumblr.com).





	1. Chapter 1: Owl Post

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 1: Owl Post**

  * POA used to be my favourite book back when I was a child. I say used to because back then when I started reading the series only the first four books were released. I’m not sure if it is my favourite Potter book still (though it is definitely in the top), because I do love book 5-7 a lot as well. I might rank them once I finish my re-read. One of the reasons why I still love this book so much is because it is pretty dark. Many people would argue that book 4 made the transition from children’s book to a young adult novel, but I would say we already see this change in book 3. The general mood of book 3 is much darker than that in book 4, however GOF ends on a much more serious and sadder note.


  * I love those random facts about the wizard history, in this case witch burning (and why it was pointless). It does explain the deep mistrust wizards have towards most Muggles, and why they live in secret. I wonder though what they thought about the countless Muggles who did indeed die, because they were accused to be witches. There is no mention of them in Harry’s textbook, and it goes with what we learned so far, that the wizarding world does in no way intervene or care about the Muggle world.


  * Petition: Please give Errol some rest (seriously Percy, you have a perfectly healthy owl that you could have lent your brother).


  * Remember how the Weasleys in book 2 only had 1 Galleon in their vault? And later they had to pay a fine of 50 Galleons. Now however they had won 700 Galleons, spending most on a summer holiday in Egypt, but also getting Ron a new wand (thankfully). Anyway, according to the Internet (and according to J. K. Rowling) 1 Galleon equals 5 pounds (or 5€). Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, neither in the way of how poor the Weasleys are or how much things cost in the wizarding world.


  * Hermione’s birthday present to Harry seems quite expensive (Broomstick Servicing Kit), and given that she has two dentists as parents it is fair to assume she and her family are high middle class or upper class.


  * Both Ron and Hagrid refer in their letters to the Dursleys as “ _the Muggles_ ” _(“Don’t let the Muggles get you down!” / “Hope the Muggles are treating you right.”_ ).  Not “ _the Dursleys_ ” or “ _your family_ ”. Only Hermione uses the words “ _your uncle Vernon_ ”. Which I think is significant in the way that Ron and Hagrid see the Dursleys (and basically all Muggles) as other, something so different from themselves that they only think of them in the most basic way: as non magic people. Whereas Hermione uses the name of Harry’s uncle, because however horrible he treats Harry, she sees him as a person.




	2. Chapter 2: Aunt Marge’s Big Mistake

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 2: Aunt Marge’s Big Mistake**

  * I feel that in comparison aunt Marge is way more horrible than uncle Vernon. The Dursleys are abusive in the way that they neglected Harry his entire life, ignoring his needs, and yelling at him whenever he did something they deemed as not normal. Aunt Marge however would have been physical abusive, that’s for sure _(“I won’t have this namby-pamby, wishy-washy nonsense about not hitting people who deserve it. A good thrashing is what’s needed in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred”_ ). I think both her and Vernon did grew up in an environment where it was normal to beat your children, and with the belief system that there is nothing abnormal a good beating couldn’t cure. I wrote about this before but I think the reason we never see Vernon getting physical abusive has more to do with the social taboo of beating your children these days than in actually believing it is wrong.


  * “ _Handbook of Do-it-Yourself Broomcare_ ” – I feel like there is a dick-joke hidden in there somewhere.


  * Now, the thing that gets Harry angry enough to blow up Marge is her talking badly about his parents, which sets up the major theme of this book. POA is like no other book about the past, about time, our wishes to re-write the past and the understanding and letting go of said past. Harry faces his past in the form of his parents, especially his father, who, through his friends, becomes an actual person to him. But here at the beginning, when Marge accuses James to be an unemployed scrounger, Harry defends his father because he simply can’t believe it to be true, not because he actually knows it. Harry knows next to nothing about his parents, despite the fact that they died to protect him. Everyone keeps telling him how great they were, in the way that the deceased often become saints. Of course both Lupin and Sirius further encourage the image of James as a great man, and it is not until book 5 and Snape’s memory of James that Harry gets a different picture of his father.


  * Marge also insists that Harry is ungrateful, that his aunt and uncle did him a great favour in taking him in, but as a wise man once said: “ _Kids aren’t supposed to be grateful. They’re supposed to eat your food and break your heart.”_




	3. Chapter 3: The Knight Bus

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 3: The Knight Bus**

  * _“But after ten minutes alone in the dark street, a new emotion overtook him: panic. Whichever way he looked at it, he had never been in a worse fix. He was stranded, quite alone, in the dark Muggle world, with absolutely nowhere to go.”_ – As a teenager I found the idea of running away (which had nothing to do with my family, but all to do with my situation at school) oddly romantic. Until of course you actually start to think about it, and realize you have no money, nowhere to go, and absolutely no plan what to do next. Harry acts on pure emotion when he decides to leave the Dursleys, without thinking about the consequences. And we will see this kind of behaviour in later books as well, where he acts on instinct, rather than logic, quite different from the way Hermione handles her problems.


  * I love the idea of the Knight Bus. Wherever you are, wherever you need to go, it gets you there, if only you have your wand and a bit of money. It gives those independence who can’t travel through the Floo Network or can’t or won’t apparate. As someone who uses public transport a lot the idea of having a bus at the ready whenever I need one is amazing.


  * When he is asked about his name Harry says he is Neville, which could almost be seen as a bit of foretelling as we later learn in book 5 how much their fates are intervened, and that Neville had almost become the Chosen One.


  * I love that even after Stan found out who Harry is he still calls him Neville.


  * _“We don’t send people to Azkaban just for blowing up their aunts!”_ \- No, they only sent people to Azkaban when there is little to no evidence they even committed a crime, because the public demanded something to be done, see Hagrid.




	4. Chapter 4: The Leaky Cauldron

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 4: The Leaky Cauldron**

  * _“Once Harry had refilled his money bag with gold Galleons, silver Sickles and bronze Knuts from his vault at Gringotts, he needed to exercise a lot of self-control not to spend the whole lot at once.”_ – So, in the wizarding world underage wizards have total access to their inherited money? I mean obviously it makes things easier for Harry, because he doesn’t have to rely on the Dursleys to buy his school supplies (though they had to wonder how he could afford all his stuff). But shouldn’t there be some kind of guardian? Harry is responsible enough to not spend all his money on things he doesn’t need, but you can’t expect that from every child. Then again, as I wrote earlier somewhere, the wizarding world demands that their children become mature & independent at a much earlier age than Muggles (basically when they enter Hogwarts), so they probably think children are to be trusted with their own money.


  * _“They were there, both of them, sitting outside Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour, Ron looking incredibly freckly, Hermione very brown, both waving frantically at him.”_ – I think this is perhaps the only time Hermione’s skin colour is mentioned, with some interpreting this as an evidence that Hermione is a POC, whereas others say it simply means she is tanned (though obviously POC can get a tan as well). Personally I always pictured Hermione as white. Then again, as a white person myself, we tend to read every character as white unless we are explicit told they are not. I also grew up in a very white environment (there was exactly one non-white student in my school), and I had the most contact with POC when I was watching TV. Which is no excuse but rather an explanation, and it wasn’t until I was in my adulthood that I understood the mechanism of White Privilege. That being said, there are actually a lot of supporting characters that were never described physically, and I always love to see interpretations of those characters via fan art, especially ones that aren’t based on the movie adaptions. The movies themselves are very white indeed, so the more those diverse interpretations are needed.


  * We get the first hint that something is off about Scabbers at the magical-creature-shop. The witch there mentions that common rats like Scabbers usually don’t live longer than 3 years. Ron is in his third year at Hogwarts, but as the book reminds us, Scabbers is second hand and used to belong to Percy, who is now in his final year, meaning Scabbers is at least 7 years old, more than double the age of an average rat. The witch at the shop also asks if Scabbers has any kind of powers, but _“[t]he truth was that Scabbers had never shown the faintest trace of interesting powers_ ”. Those are clues, meant to make the reader wonder why Scabbers is that old, or if he has indeed powers we do not know about.


  * Also, Crookshanks is my favourite Potter pet of all time. It is 1) Crookshanks, 2) Trevor and 3) Hedwig (maybe). If I were to walk in a pet shop and see a large ginger cat nobody else wanted, you bet I would have adopted him as well. Crookshanks is the best and the real hero of the book.


  * _“‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ron,’ said Mr Weasley, who on closer inspection looked very strained. ‘Black’s not going to be caught by a thirteen-year-old wizard.’”_ – Oh, the irony.


  * I think it is good that Fred & George never became prefects or head boys, because it took some pressure away from Ron (and Ginny I suppose). They were clever in their own way, and later started a successful business, showing their younger siblings than you can be successful even if you never had top marks or were promoted into positions of authority.


  * _“There was a thud on wood, and Harry was sure Mr Weasley had banged his fist on the table. ‘Molly, how many times do I have to tell you?’”_ – I don’t like man who are patronising their wives, not even when they are Arthur Weasley.


  * _“He scowled at the dark ceiling. Did they think he couldn’t look after himself? He’d escaped Lord Voldemort three times, he wasn’t completely useless …”_ – Oh, Harry. You escaped Voldemort because of lucky chances, not because you are such a talented wizard. And I think Harry’s lack of fear when it comes to Sirius Black is because Black, unlike Voldemort, is an abstract concept to him. He never met him, unlike Voldemort. And of course who could be worse than Voldemort, and if he survived him, what could Black possibly do to him? For the adults on the other hand I think Black is much more tangible than Voldemort. He is a real person, whereas Voldemort is nothing more than a shadow of himself. And many of them have known him, and as we later learn, known him as a good man, which is why they feel he is so dangerous, because nobody suspected him to go over the Dark Side. But what we also see here is the lack of punishment whenever Harry broke the rules, rules that were made to keep him safe. Rules that get constantly bent for Harry, to the point where he does get careless, because so far no harm has been done. Anyway, I agree with Mr. Weasley here that Harry had a right to know about Sirius being after him, even though it didn’t make him act more carefully.




	5. Chapter 5: The Dementor

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ **

**Chapter 5: The Dementor**

  * _“The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard’s robes which had been darned in several places. He looked ill and exhausted. Though he seemed quite young, his light-brown hair was flecked with grey.”_ – There is an interesting pattern, that I already noticed in book 2, about the physical appearance of characters, in correlation of how sympathetic these characters are. We have characters like Lockhart or the Malfoys, who always appear rather posh, and who are clearly unsympathetic characters. Opposed to the Weasleys and here Lupin, who both wear shabby robes, but are amongst the warmest and kindest characters in the series. Characters who are drawn to money and an orderly appearance (and we can count the Dursleys here as well) are seen as vain and selfish, opposed to those with little to no material possessions, who are so willing to give Harry the love he craves.
  * _“The name Professor R. J. Lupin was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.”_ – This indicates that his name, including his title, had been on Lupin’s case for quite some time, meaning that Hogwarts might not been his first job. However it is largely indicated that Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in the United Kingdom, so does that mean that Lupin taught abroad? Or did he get the name on the case after he finished his qualification to become a teacher, but then never got a job because of his condition? (Which would explain the state of his robes, and as the poverty of the Weasleys suggest there is no welfare system in the wizarding world, so how did he get by?)
  * Speaking of, do teachers actually need some sort of qualification for their job? Lockhart certainly didn’t have one, and neither Umbridge, and I doubt Hagrid had one as well. Like can everyone start as a teacher at Hogwarts who Dumbledore thinks is qualified enough?
  * _“‘I don’t go looking for trouble,’ said Harry, nettled. ‘Trouble usually finds me.’_ ” – This sums up the entire series actually.
  * _“Ron stuffed the Sneakoscope into a particularly horrible pair of Uncle Vernon’s old socks,[…]”_ – With all the money Harry has, does he still wears the old clothes of Dudley? Or does he always carry around a bunch of old socks, in case he needs to free another house-elf?
  * _“‘Oh, Ron, don’t talk rubbish,’ snapped Hermione. ‘Black’s already murdered a whole bunch of people in the middle of a crowded street. Do you really think he’s going to worry about attacking Harry just because we’re there?’”_ – Hermione of course is the only one who really gets how dangerous the Black situation is for Harry, whereas Harry is mainly upset that he can’t go to Hogsmeade, showing again that she is more mature and responsible than her friends.
  * I love how extra Draco is, searching the entire train just to insult Harry & Ron.
  * _“There was a soft, crackling noise and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired grey face, but his eyes looked alert and wary.”_ – Why use ‘Lumos’ when you can conjure flames? Way cooler.
  * _“Harry looked around the bright compartment. Ginny and Neville looked back at him, both very pale.”_ – Harry gets affected the most by the Dementors, and we later learn that is because of the horrors he has already experienced in his life. However, there are other people who had horrible experiences as well. Think of everything that had happened to Ginny last year. Think of Neville’s parents. Luna. My god, even Snape. The Dementors seem to single Harry out, but I think in reality it would have been more likely if we saw other students pass out as well, as Harry wasn’t the only one affected by the first wizarding war.
  * _“He felt weak and shivery, as though he was recovering from a bad bout of flu; he also felt the beginnings of shame. Why had he gone to pieces like that, when no one else had?”_ – Only 13 years old, Harry James Potter experiences a bad case of male fragility. It is interesting that even back then he desperately doesn’t want to be seen as weak, and how Malfoy of course will tease him because of it. Nobody likes to be around the Dementors, but only Harry sees it as some sort of failure of how much they affect him.
  * I wonder why Lupin is the only teacher we ever saw taking the train to Hogwarts. We know that Hogwarts is usually not connected to the Floo Network, and that you can’t apparate into Hogwarts, however you can apparate to Hogsmeade. Was Lupin simply to weakened, given he slept almost the entire train ride, to apparate?
  * _“They knew how much being made a teacher would mean to him. Hagrid wasn’t a fully qualified wizard; he had been expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, for a crime he had not committed.”_ – I wondered about this before, but does that mean that Hagrid is on the level of a third year? Which (look, I love Hagrid) would make him even less qualified to be a teacher.




	6. Chapter 6: Talons and Tea Leaves

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 6: Talons and Tea Leaves**

  * Hermione’s very full timetable is the first clue that something is going on with her this year. Though it seems that Ron is much determined to find out what it is than Harry. Skipping a bit forward, it is astonishing that the ministry believed Hermione to be responsible enough to use a time-turner, because it is perhaps one of the most powerful magical objects. And she only wants to use it so that she can learn more. Which obviously over time takes a toll on her, because even if you can get back in time, you don’t get more energy, and though I suppose she might had also used the time-turner to get more sleep, 48h-days can’t be healthy for anyone, less alone a child.


  * Ah divination. Of course it is no news that a lot of the things Trelawney predicted did came true one way or another, although it is debatable if it is because she is indeed a Seer or because a lot of her predictions are vague enough that you can interpret a lot in them. Also predicting that one student will die is a) wonderfully overdramatic and b) not entirely untrue. I mean everyone dies one day, and she never says a date. And statistically Harry probably had a way bigger chance to die than anyone else in the school. And he did technically die in his seventh year. It just didn’t stick with him.


  * Next to Harry, only Dean and Lavender seem not to know what a Grim is. Harry of course was raised by Muggles, Dean is Muggleborn, Lavender however must have been at last a half-blood, because she did attend Hogwarts in her seventh year.


  * I absolutely love that Hermione has zero fucks to give, even in their first lesson.


  * _“’If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues –’ Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white.”_ – She must have had such a hard time with that rule though – I mean not just Professor Trelawney, but Lockhart? Umbridge? And let’s be real here, Snape as well, because in no way she would tolerate a teacher emotional abusing his students.


  * Again, I love Hagrid, but I am not sure he would make the best teacher. He surely knows plenty about magical creatures, however Hagrid’s definition of “dangerous” is different than from most other people. Hippogriffs are sure enough fascinating, but very easily offended, and you can’t expect a bunch of 13 year-olds not to be dicks around them (especially Malfoy).


  * Also, Newt Scamander would have definitely known how to open “The Monster book of Monsters”. (Though he would never call them monsters)


  * And here we have Draco, who mocks Harry for his “weakness” when it comes to the Dementors, and yet he exaggerates to the fullest when Buckbeack attacks him. Because cold calculating Draco knows exactly that when he makes his injury look way more serious than it was it would get Hagrid in real trouble. I don’t think he is overdramatic, but he plays a role here, knowing exactly how much it will hurt Hagrid and therefore Harry.


  * I also think it is obvious that Hagrid has a bit of a drinking problem, and though his drinking is mentioned, the implications of that are never addressed.




	7. Chapter 7: The Boggart in the Wardrobe

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 7: The Boggart in the Wardrobe**

  * Let’s be real, if Hermione were ever to attend TGBBO she would a) win that thing and b) totally help all the other contenders. (Baking in the end is a lot like Potions)


  * So Malfoy knew about Black as the Potter’s secret keeper, and later Harry assumes it is because his father as a Death Eater would have known. It is more likely however that Lucius simply didn’t know who was the spy working for Voldemort and heard the story about Black in the Ministry. I wonder if Peter always had planned to frame Sirius somehow, given Sirius’s heritage and that people perhaps would be more willing to believe someone like Sirius, from a family of pureblood-fanatics, is able to betray his friends than poor little Peter.


  * _“‘Oh, yes,’ said Hermione vaguely, but she packed all the books back into her bag just the same. ‘I hope there’s something good for lunch, I’m starving,’ she added, and she marched off towards the Great Hall.”_ – How many calories had Hermione to take to even survive her stressful days?


  * If you ever felt the need to not just insult and bully your students in your own class, but in front of another teacher as well, you should take a very hard look at your life choices.


  * I love love love Lupin as a teacher so much. He creates a safe space within his classroom, he treats all his students equally, he encourages them to learn something themselves rather than just teaching them. And having a good teacher can make a great difference. Looking back the classes I liked most and that I had the best marks in where usually those with the kind of teachers Lupin is.


  * And having to face a Boggart in their first class is so interesting from a psychological point of view. Because it requires an immense amount of trust. Would you feel comfortable to share your biggest fear with your entire class? But it isn’t just about sharing and facing your fear, but about overcoming your fear. And because of it Lupin has created a certain kind of bond with his students no other teacher had before. He asks them to trust him, and their trust will be rewarded. (Which is the complete opposite of how Snape teaches)


  * Speaking of Snape: if one of your students worst fear turns out to be you, you should really overthink your methods. I think most people would be ashamed to find that out about themselves. And this is Neville, who, as we later learn, has experienced horrible things. And Snape knows. Through his Death Eater connections, or Dumbledore, or maybe because it was in the papers, Snape knows what has happened to Neville’s parents, and never showed a single moment of kindness.


  * It is interesting if we look at the Boggarts apart from Neville and Harry: mummy (Parvati), banshee (Seamus), rat, rattlesnake, eyeball, severed hand (Dean), Acromantula (Ron). We know that Ron had faced an Acromantula, but I don’t think that Parvati ever saw a real mummy or Seamus a banshee. A lot of those fears look like straight out of horror story, and maybe they are. It is likely that most of these children had never experienced anything more horrifying than those stories. But Neville and Harry’s fears are real. Neville has to face a horrible abusive teacher at least once (or twice) a week. Harry has experienced first hand what the Dementors do to him. There is a difference between the childish fears of the majority of the class and the horrors of few of them have experienced. The older you get, the more you have seen, the more real gets you fear. When Molly Weasley finds a Boggart in Grimmauld Place she therefore doesn’t see a mummy; instead she sees her dead family, a constant horrible thought in the back of her mind in times of war.




	8. Chapter 8: Flight of the Fat Lady

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 8: Flight of the Fat Lady**

  * So Snape heard about the Boggart, is aware of the fact that one of his student’s biggest fear is his teacher, and… bullies Neville even harder. What the hell is wrong with you?


  * _“Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown had taken to haunting Professor Trelawney’s tower room at lunchtimes, and always returned with annoyingly superior looks on their faces, as though they knew things the others didn’t.”_ – We know that Harry’s relationship to Professor Trelawney isn’t the best, but that doesn’t mean other students don’t have a strong bond with her. Fast forward to the Battle of Hogwarts and Trelawney attacking Fenrir Greyback after he attacked Lavender, it is very clear that they both cared about each other.


  * Every adult tries to keep Harry safe, because there is a psycho-killer after him, and yet Harry’s biggest worry is the fact that he can’t go to Hogsmeade. And as an adult myself I really wish Harry would see they are only acting in his best interest, to, you know, keep him alive, and yet it makes sense that he as a child can’t really see or appreciate this, but rather thinks of it as some sort of punishment. And they way Ron supports Harry, and Hermione supports the teacher’s decisions, shows again how much more mature and responsible Hermione is, but also puts her again in a mother-role.


  * I think Hermione being a highly logical person lets her, at times, appear a bit insensitive (which she isn’t), as we can see when she hears about Lavender’s rabbit being killed. Hermione tries to make a point in proving Trelawney’s predicament was wrong, missing entirely the point of comforting Lavender.


  * _“That suggests that what you fear most of all is – fear. Very wise, Harry.”_ – It is really interesting that Harry, who has experienced horrors most of the people his age haven’t, doesn’t fear Voldemort or Black, people he knows or assumes want him dead, but rather Dementors or specifically the kind of feelings they evoke. Instead of dreading a fearful event itself, he fears the aftermath of it, the darkness it will bring, and the thought that he might never let go of it, might never be happy again. And we see a lot of this in book 5, and how the aftermath of Cedric’s death and Voldemort’s return affect him in such a profound deep way and his struggles to cope with it.


  * Harry instinctively fears that Snape could poison Lupin or tries to harm him in any other way, knowing that Snape is after Lupin’s job (but not knowing yet that Snape & Lupin have a history). Lupin is rather calm about him, trusting Snape, fully believing that whatever happened between him and Snape at school is in the past. And yet the way Snape acts once Sirius is back in the picture, willing to hand over Lupin to the Dementors, and at the very least making sure Lupin got sacked, shows that Harry was indeed right in not trusting Snape when it comes to Lupin. And that Lupin of course is way mature than Snape, to nobody’s surprise.


  * I wonder what exactly Sirius’s plan was however. Kill Peter I assume and then? Back to Azkaban? Waiting for Harry? Trying to explain everything?




	9. Chapter 9: Grim Defeat

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 9: Grim Defeat**

  * Horray, it is a Pyjama-Party!


  * Hermione says it is lucky Black picked Halloween, the one night where they weren’t in the tower, and Ron thinks Black might have just lost track of time, however it is possible Sirius did pick this date on purpose, making sure no students were around. His plan really had been only to kill Peter to protect Harry, not thinking any further.


  * _“‘Honestly, am I the only person who’s ever bothered to read Hogwarts, A History?’ said Hermione crossly to Harry and Ron.”_ – Yes, Hermione, yes you are.


  * _“And Filch knows all the secret passages, they’ll have them covered… “_ – Except that he doesn’t, as Fred & George later explain. Lupin however knows, and at this point he still thinks Sirius is guilty, so did he told Dumbledore about them? How was it still possible for Harry to enter Hogsmeade so easily?


  * I don’t actually remember if Snape knew before that Sirius, Peter & James were Animagus. If so, did he told Dumbledore to keep looking for a giant black dog?


  * _“Hermione went very red, put down her hand and stared at the floor with her eyes full of tears. It was a mark of how much the class loathed Snape that they were all glaring at him, because every one of them had called Hermione a know-it-all at least once, and Ron, who told Hermione she was a know-it-all at least twice a week, said loudly, ‘You asked us a question and she knows the answer! Why ask if you don’t want to be told?’”_ – WORST. TEACHER. EVER. First he shows a great disrespect towards Lupin in criticizing his teaching style (knowing very well that Lupin is a competent teacher), then he humiliates yet again a student. And one would wonder why he hates Hermione as well. Is it because of her friendship with Harry, simply her being a Gryffindor (and Snape hating every student that isn’t in his house), or could it be that Hermione, bright muggle-born Hermione, reminds him so much of Lily, and Snape has never learned to cope with his feelings like a normal person would? And of course we later learn that Snape assigned them to write an essay about Werewolves hoping someone would notice that Lupin is one, and the great irony is that only Hermione did.


  * _“As Harry opened the door, something brushed against his leg. He bent down just in time to grab Crookshanks by the end of his bushy tail, and drag him outside. ‘You know, I reckon Ron was right about you,’ Harry told Crookshanks suspiciously. ‘There are plenty of mice around this place, go and chase them. Go on,’ he added, nudging Crookshanks down the spiral staircase with his foot, ‘leave Scabbers alone.’”_ – You ever wondered how Crookshanks could have altered the entire outcome of Wizarding History if he had only ate Scabbers? Because I do.


  * I am fascinated by the Dementors in what they are actually. They are defined as non-beings. They are almost animal-like, in the way that you can’t control them and they don’t obey authority, and yet as guards of Azkaban they are somehow employees of the Ministry. They leave their post acting on instinct alone, because they are hungry and feed on human emotions. They don’t distinguish between who is innocent and who is not, I’m not sure they even have an understanding of these terms, which makes them so incredible dangerous and unfitting to be guards, or to interact with humans at all, which they see as their prey.




	10. Chapter 10: The Marauder’s Map

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 10: The Marauder’s Map**

  * _“Everyone said the Dementors were horrible, but no one else collapsed every time they went near one … no one else heard echoes in their head of their dying parents.”_ – I think at some point Luna told Harry that the reason she is able to see Thestrals is because she has witnessed her mother’s death, we know Ginny’s first year at Hogwarts was a literal nightmare, so really it makes no sense that Harry is the only one affected that intense near the Dementors. Especially considering that Harry was only a year old when his parents died and he has no conscious memory of their deaths (it even says so in the text that this is the first time he has heard his mother’s voice). There is of course a theory that Harry was special because he had two souls in him, his own soul and a fragment of Voldemort’s soul. Which would explain why the Dementors were so drawn to him, and why he was affected that much. Because the night his parents died were for both Harry and Voldemort the worst day of their lives.


  * _“Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory, will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself – soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.”_ – It has been often said (and I think confirmed by the author herself) that Dementors are a metaphor for depression. Which I think is such an interesting concept to place in a children’s book, but also because in many ways the Dementors remain much more monstrous than Voldemort himself (and that is why Harry’s Boggart turns into them instead of Voldemort). They are neither alive or dead (according to Pottermore). You can’t kill them, and the only way to repel them is through a powerful happy memory. And as we later learn the Patronus charm is complex advanced magic, and trying to focus on it leaves you emotionally drained. And even though Harry probably didn’t quite understand it himself at this point, but it is telling that his biggest fear isn’t Voldemort (and therefore Death) but to be reduced to relive your worst memories over and over again, a fate worse than death.


  * I wonder if Lupin and Lily had been friends. I think the books never give us clear evidence. In the letter Harry finds in book 7 she mentions Sirius and Peter, but not Lupin. The movie adaption gave as a little scene in that regard, and I think from all we know about both Lupin and Lily it is fair to assume that got along, but I wish we would have gotten a little something to work with.


  * _“‘The fortress is set on a tiny island, way out to sea, but they don’t need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they’re all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks.’”_ – So basically the wizarding form of punishment is psychologically torture. I recommend once again to listen to the excellent Potter Podcast “ _Witch Please_ ” where they talk at length about Azkaban, Foucault and why the wizarding society is essentially a pre-modern world. (Should be either at [episode 5a](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fohwitchplease.ca%2F2015%2F04%2Fepisode-5-prisoner-of-time-restraints%2F&t=NTQ5NDRiZWQ1MzcwM2M1NGQ3NTAwZTU5NmEyN2UwMGI1ZTg0ZGE3ZixiaGdDVXN0Nw%3D%3D&b=t%3AIXr41Te0aPuWZVnviayIfQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fhufflly-puffs.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F181057667872%2Fharry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-azkaban&m=1) or [5b](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fohwitchplease.ca%2F2015%2F05%2Fepisode-5-escape-from-time-constraints%2F&t=YmNhYjRkMGY5NTE5NmJkYWQ2OTFmNjA5NzVmMDZkYzkyOTlkMzUyNSxiaGdDVXN0Nw%3D%3D&b=t%3AIXr41Te0aPuWZVnviayIfQ&p=https%3A%2F%2Fhufflly-puffs.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F181057667872%2Fharry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-azkaban&m=1), but best listen to both)


  * _“Dementors are supposed to drain a wizard of his powers if he is left with them too long_ ” – Would this imply that a severe depressed witch or wizard would lose their powers as well or at least become less powerful? How much influence has your mental health on your powers? Because Voldemort is surely powerful but definitely not mentally healthy.


  * _“‘I don’t pretend to be an expert at fighting Dementors, Harry – quite the contrary …’”_ – Just imagine everything Lupin would see when he would be forced to relive his worst memories *cries*. Also the reason why Harry wants to defend himself against the Dementors is… Quidditch. Seriously, this boy puts way too much importance on this game and racing brooms.


  * _“Both Ron and Hermione had decided to remain at Hogwarts, and though Ron said it was because he couldn’t stand two weeks with Percy, and Hermione insisted she needed to use the library, Harry wasn’t fooled; they were doing it to keep him company, and he was very grateful.”_ – Never mind their parents might have actually wanted to see them. And why did it never occur to Harry to simply spent Christmas at the Burrow? The Weasleys have already adopted him after all. (And why do we never properly met Hermione’s parents?)


  * Ah, the Marauder’s Map. Perhaps one of the most advanced pieces of magic in the entire series, made by school boys, which made me wonder what else those four could have done with minds like theirs if tragedy hadn’t unfold. What is also interesting is the way Fred & George used it – as a map. And obviously it is a map, and they give it to Harry to use it as such to get to Hogsmeade. But it is more than just that, and for me way more interesting is the fact that it shows every single inhabitant of Hogwarts in real time. And apart from that first time Harry mostly uses the map for exactly this – to find out where certain people are (like, say, stalking Draco through the entire sixth year). And it is clear that Fred & George never used the map that way, because how come they never noticed Peter was in the castle the entire time?


  * Also, given that Sirius Black had found a way to get in the castle, wouldn’t it have been the responsible thing to use said map to find out where he is, or at least inform someone about the hidden passages? They could have done it anonym, if they didn’t want to get in trouble, but I don’t think it ever occurred to Fred & George.


  * And while the map shows people in real time, it doesn’t show that one of the passages can no longer be used, and perhaps other changes about the castle as well.


  * _“Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can’t see where it keeps its brain. This map was one of those dangerous magical objects Mr Weasley had been warning against …”_ – Good thinking, Harry. _“[B]ut then, Harry reasoned, he only wanted to use it to get into Hogsmeade, it wasn’t as though he wanted to steal anything or attack anyone … and Fred and George had been using it for years without anything horrible happening …”_ Never mind.


  * The map even teaches spells! (How cute)


  * I wonder though why Harry didn’t took the Invisibility Cloak with him.


  * So, the Fidelius Charm: A quick research tells me that in case the Secret Keepers dies a) the people he shared the secret with become new Secret Keepers (as seen when Dumbledore died, who was the Secret Keeper for Grimmauld Place) or b) if the Secret Keeper kept the secret it dies with him/her. So say Sirius would have been chosen as the Secret Keeper and died for James & Lily, would they have stayed hidden for the rest of their lives?


  * So Dumbledore had ordered Hagrid to bring Harry to the Dursleys, originally claiming it would be better for him to grew up far away from the wizarding world, where he had instantly become famous. We later learn though that the real reason why Harry had to live with the Dursleys was because his mother’s sacrifice lived on in Petunia, that as long as she gave him a home he would be protected. But what if Sirius hadn’t gone after Peter? Would he had visited Harry? Told him about his parents, about his abilities? Next to the Dursleys he was the only remaining family had, and I doubt anybody could have prevented him from seeing after Harry.


  * _“Black argued, but in the end he gave in. Told me ter take his motorbike ter get Harry there. “I won’ need it any more,” he says. ‘I shoulda known there was somethin’ fishy goin’ on then. He loved that motorbike, what was he givin’ it ter me for? Why wouldn’ he need it any more?”_ – The moment James & Lily had died, the moment Sirius realized what Peter had done, his life no longer mattered. He was after Peter, and he didn’t care if it would kill him, and maybe he even hoped for it.


  * _“‘Hero-worshipped Black and Potter,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘Never quite in their league, talent-wise.”_ – I always wondered why Peter in the end betrayed the Potters. Out of fear? Being terrified of  Voldemort? Or was it possible he felt some sort of resentment towards James & Sirius, who never quite treated him as their equal, who was only part of their group because Lupin took pity on him?




	11. Chapter 11: The Firebolt

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 11: The Firebolt**

  * I think one of the things that makes Sirius so different from other villains (and at this point of the story he is still seen as a villain) is his personal connection to Harry. Harry seemingly didn’t care about Sirius, and that he was after Harry, as long as he thought of him as just another Death Eater. But the moment Harry found out about Sirius relationship to his parents, about his betrayal, he starts to hate him. And I don’t recall he ever expressed hate towards Voldemort or any of his followers. He fears Voldemort, yes, but he doesn’t hate him. Voldemort’s murder of his parents was in no way personal – as we later learn it was based on a prophecy, and there was even a chance Voldemort would have chosen another boy (Neville). And Voldemort has always been monstrous, and described as someone who is no longer human. Sirius on the other hand was a friend of the Potter’s, their best friend, and the one they trusted with their lives. In the same way Voldemort has always been abstract, Sirius very much isn’t. He is real, and he had been a part of Harry’s family before Harry even was born, and that makes it hurt in a way Voldemort could have never hurt Harry. And the reason POA is perhaps my favourite book of the series, because it is deeply emotional on a level the other books aren’t.


  * Of course once the truth is revealed Harry’s hate shifts towards Peter, and still it is different then what he felt for Sirius, perhaps because Peter was never as close to James and Lily the way Sirius was. And therefore Harry (and the reader with him) is still more emotional invested in Sirius, and his own personal tragedy, then we are in Peter.


  * _“He watched, as though somebody was playing him a piece of film, Sirius Black blasting Peter Pettigrew (who resembled Neville Longbottom) into a thousand pieces.”_ – There have been a lot of meta comparing the Marauders to Harry and his friends, in the ways they are alike, and the ways in which the younger generation made different (and mostly better) choices. I think the comparison between Peter and Neville isn’t that far off – both lack certain magical talents, especially compared to their friends, both are outsiders and get belittled. There is however a huge shift in Harry’s relationship to Neville in the fifth year, where Harry learns more about Neville’s past and for the first time actually sees him, and from accepting his presence to becoming his actual friend. And obviously however James and Sirius treated Peter doesn’t justify what Peter did, but I think they never saw him as their equal and probably belittled him the way Harry does the first four and a half years with Neville.


  * _“‘Yeh can’ really remember who yeh are after a while. An’ yeh can’ see the point o’ livin’ at all. I used ter hope I’d jus’ die in me sleep …”_ – And compared to most other inmates Hagrid only spent a rather short time at Azkaban. Just imagine being in this state for years. And we’ve heard more than once that most inmates just go mad after a while, something we should keep in mind concerning characters like Barty Crouch Jr. or Bellatrix Lestrange.


  * _“‘Think that matters to them? They don’ care. Long as they’ve got a couple o’ hundred humans stuck there with ’em, so they can leech all the happiness out of ’em, they don’ give a damn who’s guilty an’ who’s not.’”_ – I feel that in a larger context this is a comment about the law system in general (or maybe specifically Britain, though I’m no expert on the subject), and how often it doesn’t matter if one is innocent or not, as long as there are results and someone to blame for. But in the context of the story of course the tragic irony of having prison guards who are complete amoral beings.


  * _“Mrs Weasley had sent him a scarlet jumper with the Gryffindor lion knitted on the front, […].”_ – I wonder if Ron’s jumpers had complicated patterns knitted on them as well, or if only Harry got those special jumpers? (And is it ever mentioned if Hermione got a jumper?)


  * _“Hermione had just come in, wearing her dressing-gown and carrying Crookshanks, who was looking very grumpy, with a string of tinsel tied around his neck.”_ – I need fan art of this.


  * I wonder why so many students left Hogwarts at Christmas that year? With Harry, Ron and Hermione there are only 6 students in total around. And even the year before, when the Chamber of Secrets had already been opened, there were more students left. So what changed? The presence of the Dementors? Sirius Black’s escape? Why is Ron the only Weasley at Hogwarts?


  * _“‘But one does not parade the fact that one is All-Knowing. I frequently act as though I am not possessed of the Inner Eye, so as not to make others nervous.’”_ – I too often act as though I am dumb, even though I am all knowing, so others don’t feel too intimidated by my awesomeness.


  * _“Though Professor McGonagall was Head of Gryffindor house, Harry had only seen her in the common room once before, and that had been to make a very grave announcement.”_ – Which I always found odd. Sure the students should have some privacy but basically nothing or rather nobody prevents them from partying every day or basically doing whatever they want in their common rooms, so the fact that the Gryffindor common room isn’t full anarchy is obviously due to the fact how intimidating McGonagall really is.


  * _“‘Because I thought – and Professor McGonagall agrees with me – that that broom was probably sent to Harry by Sirius Black!’”_ – She is not wrong. And of course it is so typical for Hermione to be the only one to think like an adult and to find the entire situation highly suspicious, and I am super annoyed that Harry and Ron both gave her such a hard time for her basically making sure Harry doesn’t die in his next Quidditch match. She really does act like a mother, trying to do the best for her children, whether they like her for it or not.




	12. Chapter 12: The Patronus

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 12: The Patronus**

  * What follows is a long stretch of time where neither Harry or Ron talk to Hermione, first because of the Firebolt and then Scabbers. And I think we talk about months here. And it is not like I never had fights with my friends about things that weren’t even worth the trouble but I had never been that petty. Sure we might didn’t talk for a week or so, but then it was over, because being in school together and sitting next to each other in every class is going to be real awkward if you no longer talk. Basically I just want Harry and Ron to get over themselves, instead of holding the second longest grudge, only outrun by Snape, the master of all grudges.


  * So Hermione knew that Lupin was a werewolf since Christmas at least, (probably before when she wrote the werewolf essay for Snape) and kept it a secret the entire time. Why? Was her trust and admiration for Lupin big enough that she didn’t think of the possible danger he could pose? Did she share this information with any of the teachers only to learn they already knew about him? Because I love Lupin, don’t get me wrong, but Hermione, highly logical Hermione, would take her emotions for her teacher aside if she thought he was dangerous. Because Hermione couldn’t have known about the Potion Snape made for Lupin… or maybe she did, as both Harry had mentioned it and Dumbledore again over Christmas dinner. Still, in the Shrieking Shak Hermione said she covered for Lupin and I wonder what that implied.


  * The Patronus Charm is probably one of the most specific charms there is. Like how often does an average wizard encounter a Dementor and therefore even knows the Charm? How come Lupin knew it? The only other time we see the Charm performed is as a way to communicate, in book 7. Apart from that the Patronus Charm is also the most beautiful charm if you think about it. Born out of a truly happy memory it protects the caster and serves as a guardian. And of course when we look at the Dementors as a metaphor for depression, the Patronus Charm is then a metaphor for a cure (though nothing can actually kill a Dementor). And it is quite telling that said cure is highly advanced magic, that a lot of wizards and witches never mastered to perform, that focussing on a happy memory does sound easy but is indeed the hardest part, as the Dementor takes away all your happy memories and the sense of yourself.


  * _“‘Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it.’”_ – Mine, of course, is a sloth.


  * Not only does the Boggart looks like a Dementor, it has also the same effect on Harry as a real Dementor. Which makes me wonder, can a Boggart actually hurt a wizard/witch? Or can they only scare their victims?


  * _“What if the Dementors turn up at our match against Ravenclaw? I can’t afford to fall off again. If we lose this game we’ve lost the Quidditch Cup!’”_ – Harry Potter everyone, setting his priorities straight.


  * It is interesting to look at the happy memories Harry chooses to conjure a Patronus: riding a broom for the first time, winning the House Cup, learning that he is a wizard. The first two feel strangely impersonal, whereas the third was a life-changing experience. And it reminds me of the Boggarts that most of Harry’s classmates saw, and how they presented childish fears like mummies, because hardly anyone of them had experienced real fear and horror. And Harry somehow is missing that one genuine moment of happiness. And it is not as he doesn’t have happy memories, but it is how he looks at things. He doesn’t think of the friends he found at Hogwarts as a happy memory, but rather about things and events. Later though, in book 5, the thought of Ron and Hermione does help him to conjure a Patronus, and again in book 7. And I think that might also be a reason why this charm is usually taught to much older students, because they have a deeper, more complex understanding of their own psyche, which would help them to cast the spell.


  * It is also interesting to look how different Lupin and Harry’s relationship was compared to what Sirius and Harry later had. Lupin never tries to be a father figure, he doesn’t treat Harry different than any other student and tries to keep his distance, and he only coincidently lets slip out that he knew James, without telling Harry more about their friendship. Things change a bit once Lupin is no longer Harry’s teacher. But Sirius on the other hand offers Harry to live with him after Harry knew him for about an hour, and Harry, longing for a real family ever since, happily accepts. I think Lupin kept his distance, knowing how complicated things could get with the history he had with James, and that is exactly where Sirius’s relationship with Harry went wrong, but we will talk about this once we get there.


  * _“Terrible though it was to hear his parents’ last moments replayed inside his head, these were the only times Harry had heard their voices since he was a very small child. But he’d never be able to produce a proper Patronus if he half wanted to hear his parents again …”_ – Harry was only a baby when his parents died, so the memory of it is subconscious at the very least. And yet he remembers it as if he had been a real witness, including every little detail. So the Dementors are able to bring back memories we aren’t even aware of or that our mind made us forget in order to survive, forcing their victims to constantly relive their traumas.


  * _“Harry didn’t have time to fathom the mystery of Hermione’s impossible timetable at the moment;”_ – Most oblivious character ever.


  * _“‘I’m not buying anything Malfoy thinks is good,’ said Harry flatly.”_ – I love one (1) overly dramatic teenage boy.


  * _“You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you’ll have no sense of self any more, no memory, no … anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery. You’ll just – exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone for ever … lost.”_ – Let’s talk about souls for a bit. First of all, the soul and the body are separate things here, and one can exist without the other. The idea of a separation between body and soul is quite common in most religions, and the way a human without a soul is described here fits into most philosophies. Essentially the soul is who you are as a person, and without it yourself stops existing, leaving only a body behind. (Which is actually quite different than how the soul is described in other fictions, such as _Supernatural_ or _Buffy_ , where the soul serves as a moral compass, and people without it become amoral beings.) However the great difference is that most religions believe the soul is immortal and indestructible. But we later learn that wizards are able to destroy their souls and break them apart, through the construction of Horcruxes. And yet creating a Horcrux is different than losing your soul, because Voldemort still had a sense of who he is, and all his soul-pieces shared the same memories, emotions and motivations (the Tom Riddle/Diary-Horcrux knew about Harry, even though Harry existed after its creation). Without a doubt though the Horcruxes made Voldemort more and more less human, and ultimately someone beyond saving.


  * It is also completely fair to read Harry Potter as a Christian text. While religion itself isn’t really mentioned in the text (apart from Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter), Christian motifs can be found throughout the text, the most evident Harry’s sacrifice in book 7, that results in the protection of the people at Hogwarts in the same way Harry was protected through his mother’s sacrifice, painting Harry as Christ figure.


  * _“Explain why Muggles Need Electricity”_ – THE INTERNET.


  * As much as it annoyed me that Harry and Ron didn’t talk to Hermione because of a broom of all things, I appreciate that Harry’s first though after getting back the Firebolt was that they should make up with Hermione, pointing out that she was only trying to help, and was genuinely worried about her workload and the stress she put herself under. I mean the peace lasts only for about 2 minutes before Scabbersgate, but it was nice. (Give it to Peter to ruin friendships even as a rat.)




	13. Chapter 13: Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 13: Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw**

  * I would have loved for Hermione to suggest that Scabbers had only faked his death, just so that she could have said “I told you so”.


  * But also the whole thing happened after Neville lost his list with the passwords, that as we later learn Crookshanks had stolen, so did Peter knew or suspected that Crookshanks worked together with Sirius and that it would be now only a matter of time until Sirius would enter the Gryffindor common room?


  * So, Cho has a Comet Two Sixty for a broom, whereas Harry has a Firebolt. It has been implied before that the students can bring their own brooms, or otherwise I suppose the school will provide you with a broom. But basically if everyone plays on a different broom, and Harry plays on an international racing broom, aren’t things a bit unfair? What chance does Cho have, no matter how talented she is, if Harry rides a broom that is much faster? The year before Hermione pointed out that Malfoy had bought himself into the Slytherin Quidditch team, whereas Harry got in the Gryffindor team based in talent. But still, privileged children from wealthy families can afford brooms other children can’t and by the school rules they are allowed to use them. And I don’t blame Harry here, I just think there should have been rule where all Quidditch players play on the same broom, to make the game fair.


  * _“Cedric Diggory came over to congratulate Harry on having acquired such a superb replacement for his Nimbus”_ – He is such a kind, good person. He had also offered to replay the match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff earlier, after Harry fell from his broom, even though Hufflepuff had won. I just makes me so incredible sad, knowing Cedric’s fate, seeing the kind of person he was.


  * Neville would be the kind of person to write down all his computer passwords and they would all be 12345. (I love him)




	14. Chapter 14: Snape’s Grudge

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 14: Snape’s Grudge**

  * So Harry and Ron know very well that there are secret passages into the castle, ones Filch (and therefore likely the teachers as well) don’t know about, and yet they don’t tell anyone. Of course they think the only passage Sirius could use is the one Harry used to get to Hogsmeade, but even then Ron argues that they would have known if someone broke in into Honeydukes. Which is like… seriously? Sirius Black managed to escape from Azkaban, you think he couldn’t break in into Honeydukes without leaving any evidence? _“Harry was glad Ron took this view. If the one-eyed witch was boarded up too, he would never be able to go into Hogsmeade again.”_ Really? The man Harry believes is responsible for his parent’s death broke into his home and all he cares about is going to Hogsmeade? I’m glad this chapter features both Hagrid and Lupin reminding Harry about his priorities.


  * _“[B]ut I gotta tell yeh, I thought you two’d value yer friend more’n broomsticks or rats. Tha’s all.”_ – THANK YOU HAGRID.


  * _“Hermione took one frightened look at the expression on Ron’s face, gathered Crookshanks up and hurried away towards the girls’ dormitories.”_ – Childish banter aside, but Hermione is actually afraid of Ron here. Ron, who keeps yelling at her, accusing her of having done enough damage already. And I think moments like this are why some people have problems with the Ron/Hermione-ship, because this won’t be the last moment where Ron acts like an ass, and where it is very hard to like him and to find any excuses for his behaviour.


  * Not that Harry doesn’t act like a jerk, finding excuses to get rid of poor Neville, to go to Hogsmeade instead. In all honesty we have probably all been acting like this at some point, and moving forward we start book 5 with Harry thinking of Neville and Luna as not cool, only to do some major growing up, which we will see in book 6. Still, it is never even mentioned if Harry at the very least apologized to Neville for leaving him behind, and I really hope he did.


  * I wonder of the Hogwarts ghosts knew about the secret of the Shrieking Shak and if they started the rumour on purpose that some very rough ghosts haunted the place.


  * _“‘Everyone from the Minister for Magic downwards has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black. But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to, with no thought for the consequences.’”_ – Both Snape and later Lupin give Harry a telling-off about secretly going to Hogwarts, but the reasons for it a very different. For Snape it is all about Harry thinking he is above the law, the way his father had bending the rules (which Harry doesn’t know about yet), and there is some truth to it, because so far the rules have been bent a lot for Harry, but not because he is famous but to ensure his safety. And if Harry is to blame for something it isn’t his arrogance, but for not being aware that his actions have consequences, and because he is who he is, those consequences are usually a lot bigger than for other children his age. And that’s the point, as much as keep complaining about Harry not having his priorities set straight, he is still a child. He shouldn’t have to worry about these consequences.


  * Snape is the first one to deconstruct the image Harry had about his father in telling him that there was nothing really heroic about James saving Snape. Of course Snape’s own judgement is clouded as well. Harry learns about his father from people who were biased – either in his favour (Lupin, Sirius) or against him (Snape). And it isn’t until book 5 that Harry actually sees his father in a memory and can make his own judgement – though seeing as it is Snape’s memory it is of course again biased. The truth is somewhere in between – James Potter wasn’t a saint, but not a horrible person either. And we can hardly put any character into a strict category of good or bad. The good ones mess up, they do act like jerks, and the bad ones are allowed to redeem themselves. And that is one of the great strengths of the series, that all those characters are real people, who are allowed to mess up as much as they are allowed to become heroes.


  * Snape knows a little bit about everything but not enough. He suspects the statue of the one-eyed-witch to be a secret passage but doesn’t know how to open it. He knows that the Marauder’s map isn’t just a piece of parchment, but not that it is a map. He suspected James and his friends to break the rules but never figured out how.


  * _“‘Don’t expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the Dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them – gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks.’”_ – The good old guilt-tripping. But there is a huge difference between Snape and Lupin and how they see the situation. Snape thinks Harry is too arrogant to follow the rules whereas Lupin sees Harry for what he is – a child not aware of the consequences his actions have. And he puts a lot of weight here on Harry’s conscience – but unlike Snape, Lupin and his words have an effect on Harry, reminding him that his life is more important than any trip to Hogsmeade. And perhaps some of Snape’s anger was coming from there as well, seeing how Lily gave her life for her son, and how Harry seemingly didn’t care about her sacrifice. (He does care of course, but up til this point has never seen his own life as anything other than granted instead of a gift given to him.)




	15. Chapter 15: The Quidditch Final

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 15: The Quidditch Final**

  * Alternative title: Hermione is really done with all of your shit.


  * As glad as I am that Hermione and Ron made up, it is only Hermione who apologizes, we never hear Ron saying that he is sorry for everything he said to Hermione.


  * _“Harry and Ron both made furious moves towards Malfoy, but Hermione got there first – SMACK! She had slapped Malfoy around the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered.”_ – BEST SCENE. And then Hermione gets out her wand, which makes Malfoy leave, because, let’s be real, he knows he would lost any duel against Hermione and wants to spare himself the humiliation. He also never gets anything back to Hermione, maybe because he doesn’t want anyone to know that a girl hit him.


  * That is also the moment Ron falls in love with her, he just doesn’t know it yet.


  * _“And to the whole class’s amazement, Hermione strode over to the trapdoor, kicked it open, and climbed down the ladder out of sight.”_ – I think what is the most amazing thing here is that Hermione never quits academic work or talks to a teacher without respect. Hermione is someone who believes in rules, who believes in authority. And this of course will change in the years to come, but this is one big step towards it. So far her rule breaking was limited for doing things for a greater good (like the Polyjuice Potion, which should had helped to find out who the heir of Slytherin was), there needed to be a good reason for it. But here we see Hermione being utterly done. There is no benefit from doing Divination, only a waste of her time, and for once her own needs are more important to her (good for her).


  * _“Harry slept badly. First he dreamed that he had overslept, and that Wood was yelling, ‘Where were you? We had to use Neville instead!’”_ – Oh hey, another Neville parallel.


  * _“What did this mean? If Crookshanks could see the dog as well, how could it be an omen of Harry’s death?”_ – Did it never occur to Harry that the giant black dog he sees is just… a giant black dog after all?


  * _“Professor McGonagall didn’t even bother to tell him off. She was actually shaking her fist in Malfoy’s direction; her hat had fallen off, and she, too, was shouting furiously.”_ – I need some fan art of this scene, please.


  * I mean basically Malfoy saw the Snitch before Harry and if they both had been riding on the same broom Slytherin would have won. No wonder they were cheating if the game was even unfair from the start off.




	16. Chapter 16: Professor Trelawney’s prediction

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 16: Professor Trelawney’s prediction**

  * Hermione had problems facing her Boggart during her exam, which turned out to be Professor McGonagall telling her she failed all her exams. First of all she is the only one of her class who didn’t face a Boggart before, so the others already had the advantage of knowing what their Boggart would look like. I wonder if Hermione knew her Boggart would turn into that. And again it is interesting to compare her Boggart to the Boggarts her classmates were facing. Ron makes fun of it (just… don’t), but her fear is as real as Harry or Neville’s was. Harry had to face the Dementors, Neville had to face Snape, and Hermione has to take her exams. It is possible to see her fear of failing her exams, despite being the best student in her year, as part of the imposter syndrome, seeing how both her being a girl and Muggle-born she is meant to fail, and is convinced she has to study much more than anyone else in order to belong at Hogwarts. It really gives you some insight into Hermione’s character. The only other spell we know she has troubles with is the Patronus Charm (as confirmed in book 7). Both the Ridiculous Charm and the Patronus Charm have an emotional element – you have to face your deepest fear and rely on your happiest memory. Hermione is highly logical, whereas Harry is more intuitive. I feel it is not so much a question of talent but rather of character.


  * You know Harry did indeed predict the future after all, Buckbeack did survive and was flying away. So Trelawney really had no other chance than to give him a good mark, right?


  * _“Hagrid was not crying, nor did he throw himself upon their necks. He looked like a man who did not know where he was or what to do. This helplessness was worse to watch than tears.”_ – I think for children it is always the worst to see adults helpless, to realize that they as well don’t always know what to do or to say, and can’t always magically fix things (and later on we have a similar scene with Dumbledore).




	17. Chapter 17: Cat, Rat and Dog

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 17: Cat, Rat and Dog**

  * _“On a magnificent four-poster bed with dusty hangings, lay Crookshanks, purring loudly at the sight of them. On the floor beside him, clutching his leg, which stuck out at a strange angle, was Ron.”_ – I know this isn’t supposed to be funny, but it is such a cat thing to do to lie on the bed like a king, while the human with the broken leg can use the floor.


  * I always wondered what Sirius’s intention was. We know he wants to kill Peter, for what he had done, but also to protect Harry, and yet his plan doesn’t involve that the truth comes out and he can prove his innocence. It is Lupin who insists to tell Harry the truth, to make Harry understand. Sirius just wanted to kill Peter and… go back to Azkaban, I assume? Live on the run? Either way, he doesn’t even try not to sound like a maniac, once Harry and Hermione arrive, and this might be the effect the Dementors had on him, that he no longer cared about his own life, his own freedom, but only about his revenge.


  * _“He had forgotten about magic – he had forgotten that he was short and skinny and thirteen, whereas Black was a tall, full-grown man. All Harry knew was that he wanted to hurt Black as badly as he could and that he didn’t care how much he got hurt in return …”_ – This oddly enough reminds me of that moment in Deathly Hallows at Malfoy Manor, when Harry and Draco fight over the wands. Because both fights are so physical, without any magic involved, driven by raw emotion, in this case anger. And this who Harry is, someone who attacks without thinking, someone who acts on his emotions, because he cares so deeply that it is impossible not to, no matter the consequences.


  * I just love this image of a highly trained wizard, who they believe to be a mass murderer, getting attacked by three wandless teenagers, one of them with a broken leg, just kicking and hitting him with all they got. They were of course never in real danger but I’m pretty sure Sirius was a bit impressed with them.


  * _“Harry raised the wand. Now was the moment to do it. Now was the moment to avenge his mother and father. He was going to kill Black. He had to kill Black. This was his chance … The seconds lengthened, and still Harry stood frozen there, wand poised, Black staring up at him, Crookshanks on his chest.”_ – But this is also who Harry is: not a killer. Despite from the fact that he doesn’t even know the killing curse yet (or any other curse that could cause damage, seriously what were you planning on doing?), Harry doesn’t take lives. There is a significance that he never used the killing curse on Voldemort, that Death Eaters could tell who he is among six other Potters because he used a disarming charm, because Harry isn’t a violent person. We see him using the Crucio-curse, but he never takes pleasure in it. He has a dark side but there are lines he never oversteps.


  * Hermione’s final argument for not trusting Lupin, apart from the fact that he is apparently Sirius’s friend, is that he is a werewolf. Which of course is an incredible cruel thing to say and to suggest. And then Hermione admits she has known for months about Lupin’s condition, admits that she has been covering up for him (though we never find out how exactly), and had assumed all the time that the staff was unaware of Lupin’s condition. Hermione had to put an enormous trust in Lupin, thinking she was the only one aware of his secret. Trusting him not to hurt anyone, especially not Harry, with whom he spent many hours alone. Hermione doesn’t act on emotion, she acts on logic. And yet, in this case she didn’t, because logically there is no good reason why she wouldn’t have told anyone, not even a teacher. Hermione went to McGonagall because she thought the Firebolt might be dangerous, but never told anyone about Lupin. And I think it is because she knows not to judge someone based on their affliction, but rather based on the kind of person they are. Lupin is a kind man, worthy of her trust. She sees him as the victim that he is, and doesn’t believe in the prejudices surrounding werewolf. Up til the moment her trust is betrayed, and she lashes out in the most horrible way, associating Lupin’s illness with murder.


  * _“Ron made a valiant effort to get up again, but fell back with a whimper of pain. Lupin made towards him, looking concerned, but Ron gasped, ‘Get away from me, werewolf!’ Lupin stopped dead.”_ – This moment always breaks my heart, because Lupin’s worst fear comes true. The moment people know about him, they no longer see him as a person, as a human being, but only see the werewolf in him, only see him as a monster. By calling him werewolf Ron essentially denies Lupin personhood. And there is someone else who later calls Lupin “the werewolf”: Snape. The difference however is that Ron is a scared boy, who at the moment doesn’t know better, but learns from his mistakes. After Lupin told him his story Ron is willing to trust him again. Snape however is a grown man, someone who has actively helped all year that Lupin doesn’t transform into a monster, and yet when he shows his true face it is evident that he sees Lupin still as nothing more than a monster, someone deserving the Dementor’s kiss. And this is pretty much how Voldemort and the Death Eaters saw werewolves: as not even human and unclean, freaks that they could use for their cause, but never as equals. And whatever heroism Snape might shows towards the end of his life, a lot of his views are still dangerously close to the Death Eaters.


  * There is also a certain kind of irony in Snape setting up the werewolf essay, hoping someone would realize what Lupin is, but only Hermione does, the so called know-it-all, and then she decides no tell anyone.


  * Lupin saw Peter’s name on the Marauder’s map and that made me wonder: how come Fred & George had the map for five years and never noticed Peter Pettigrew’s name on it? Did they really only use it to find secret passages? Did they assume Peter was maybe one of Percy’s classmates (as Scabbers belonged to Percy before Ron got him), being unaware of the whole story about Sirius Black? How could they miss this?


  * _“‘An Animagus,’ said Black, ‘by the name of Peter Pettigrew.’”_ – It’s been nearly twenty years since I first read this book and even though I knew it was coming I still gasped reading this. To me one of the best plot twists ever done.




	18. Chapter 18: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 18: Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs**

  * I think we should remember that both Sirius and Lupin were completely okay with murdering Peter. And I guess it is something we would expect from Sirius, who, as we learn, is driven by his emotions, the same way Harry is. Sirius, who spent twelve years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, while still feeling guilty for James and Lily’s death, and only the thought of getting his revenge kept him from going mad. The thought of killing Peter kept Sirius alive, and he hasn’t thought further than that, and cares about nothing else. Lupin though is a different story. He is much more like Hermione, acting on reason and logic. Earlier Lupin asked Harry if anyone would deserve the Dementor’s kiss, and yet he is morally okay with murder (than again in his eyes death is kinder than the Dementor’s kiss). In the end it is only because of Harry’s choice that they don’t kill Peter, not because he wanted to show mercy, but to prevent Sirius and Lupin from becoming killers, saving not one, but three souls.


  * _“Then Hermione spoke, in a trembling, would-be calm sort of voice, as though trying to will Professor Lupin to talk sensibly.”_ – Hermione is the one, who amongst all things, believes in authorities. Lupin is a teacher of hers, someone she trusted, and yet he seems to be a friend of a mass-murderer and is talking what appears to be nonsense. For all Hermione knows Lupin is losing his mind, or is as dangerous as Sirius Black, if not more. Harry is angry and confused, but Hermione is deeply unsettled and afraid of what is happening. Because she knows that both Lupin and Sirius are way more skilled than they are, and that they don’t really stand a chance. So she tries to reason with Lupin, in hope to get back the man she put her trust into.


  * _“I was terrified they would desert me the moment they found out what I was.”_ – It is a very common reading that Lupin’s affliction is a metaphor for HIV, one that I think even Rowling herself confirmed. And it makes sense in the way that both illnesses are socially stigmatized, and the people who suffer from it are outcast, based also on miseducation or the complete lack of knowledge about it. However it becomes problematic when we also see how deeply intervened HIV and LGBT-history are, that it was known as the “gay disease” and that it is in most cases sexual transmitted. Because Lupin was bitten as a child, and as we later learn by Fenrir Greyback, who prefers his victims to be young. So if being a werewolf is a metaphor for the “gay disease”, then the introduction of Greyback associates gay men with paedophile. Even Lupin, because once his secret is revealed concern parents wrote to the school, afraid he could “turn” their children. And that is the big issue, because you can’t write about HIV (metaphors or not) without acknowledging its history, which is  queer history.


  * _“All this year, I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn’t do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I’d betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I’d led others along with me … and Dumbledore’s trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job, when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am.”_ – This is messed up from so many angles. Lupin, who yearns so much for acceptance, for someone trusting him, that he risked (assumingly) Harry’s life in order not to lose this trust. It’s a product of the life he had been forced to live, isolated so much, that he would have done anything to keep his only friends, and later to keep the trust Dumbledore had put in him, because he had nothing else left. The night James and Lily died Lupin lost also Peter and Sirius – he lost everything. But it also says something about Dumbledore, about the influence he has on people, and the things they are willing to do for him (and his trust). Which we will see later in the blind trust Harry puts in him.


  * The trick Sirius played on Snape was cruel and highly dangerous, and I think it does tell a lot about Sirius, because stupid schoolboy pranks aside, Snape could have been killed. And it is something Harry knows about but decides to put a blind eye on.




	19. Chapter 19: The Servant of Lord Voldemort

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ **

**Chapter 19: The Servant of Lord Voldemort**

  * I mentioned before that I am not a huge fan of Snape and this chapter doesn’t help change my opinion on him. It really really doesn’t.
  * So within minutes Snape ties up Lupin, threatens to kill Sirius and insults both Hermione and Harry. He refers several times to Lupin as “the werewolf”, completely dehumanizing him (and he ties up Lupin, not Sirius, who is an assumingly mass murderer). He is completely beyond reason, refuses to listen to anyone, completely convinced of his version of events to the point where he would give over two men to the Dementors, one of them who had been his colleague for the better part of a year. Snape is a man stuck in the past, both in his hatred for Sirius and Lupin, and his love for Lily, unable to let go and move on, and in his bitterness he can’t see beyond his past.
  * _“‘Two more for Azkaban tonight,’ said Snape, his eyes now gleaming fanatically._ […] _‘KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL!’ Snape shouted, looking suddenly quite deranged._ […] _But there was a mad glint in Snape’s eye that Harry had never seen before. He seemed beyond reason.”_ – All of this is of course told from Harry’s perspective, who is already biased in his hatred for Snape. And yet it paints a clear picture of how unstable and therefore dangerous Snape is.
  * _“‘We attacked a teacher … we attacked a teacher …’ Hermione whimpered, staring at the lifeless Snape with frightened eyes. ‘Oh, we’re going to be in so much trouble –’”_ – And this is the worst for Hermione, not just that they attacked someone, but that it was a teacher, a figure of authority, no matter how utterly disrespectful Snape treats Hermione.
  * I did some reading on rats (they are actually quite cute pets) and not only was it suspicious that Scabbers had been alive for 12 years (common rats get 2-3 years old) but rats are also very social animals, who live in packs of at least 3. Like if you ever meet a rat who likes to be on its own and lives quite long… get suspicious.
  * _“’This cat isn’t mad,’ said Black hoarsely. He reached out a bony hand and stroked Crookshanks’s fluffy head. ‘He’s the most intelligent of his kind I’ve ever met.’”_ – Of course the brightest witch of her age would happen to choose the smartest pet there is. Did I mention how much I love Crookshanks?
  * Sirius says that Peter had been hiding from Voldemort’s followers in the last twelve years, that he heard things at Azkaban, implying that they did in fact knew who the spy was. Earlier though it seemed like they didn’t know, because Draco had teased Harry about Black, making it seem that he (and therefore most likely his father) just knew the official version, that Sirius was the secret-keeper. So who exactly knew the truth? How much did Snape knew? Because if he thought Sirius to be responsible for Lily’s death it would explain to some degree his fanatic behaviour. And yet Harry, who lost his parents that night, gives Lupin and Sirius a chance to tell the truth, the way Snape didn’t. Snape and Harry do mirror each other, with both finding themselves in similar situations, and yet their choices couldn’t be more different.
  * But what if Sirius had been the secret keeper and kept his promise and died for it, without ever telling anyone, would the Potters have been hidden forever? Can you literal take a secret to the grave?
  * _“Black was frowning slightly at Hermione, but not as though he was annoyed with her. He seemed to be pondering his answer.”_ – There is also a great difference how both Lupin and Sirius treat Hermione when she asks a question compared to Snape. They don’t look down to her or call her a “stupid girl”, but rather treat her as an equal, as someone who has the right to ask questions, and who deserves an honest answer.
  * As I wrote before Sirius intention wasn’t to prove his innocence and to get his life back. His only thought was his obsession with Peter and preventing him from harming Harry (of course ironically if Sirius hadn’t escaped Peter wouldn’t have had a reason to return to Voldemort, which resulted in his rebirth, so what started to protect Harry ended in Voldemort’s return). And this wasn’t a happy thought, so the Dementors couldn’t take it away from him. Sirius was no longer able to be happy, to want something for himself, he no longer cared about himself and his life. This is what Dementors are making of their victims: beings who have long given up the will to live.
  * _“Ron’s face was set. He seemed to have taken Scabbers’s true identity as a personal insult.”_ – The fact that Ron volunteered to chain himself to Peter is based on the fact that he probably feels guilty and to a degree responsible for what happened. Scabbers was his pet, he brought him to the school, he put Harry’s life unknowingly in danger. None of what happened is of course his fault, but it tells you something about Ron as a person that he still takes responsibility.




	20. Chapter 20: The Dementor’s Kiss

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 20: The Dementor’s Kiss**

  * _“Harry went right after Sirius, who was still making Snape drift along ahead of them; he kept bumping his lolling head on the low ceiling. Harry had the impression Sirius was making no effort to prevent this.”_ – Imagining this scene will never not be funny to me.


  * I remember reading this chapter as a child, and being equally ecstatic as Harry when Sirius offered him a home away from the Dursleys. A home where he would be loved and accepted, with the closest to a parent he could get. Now though… I look at this scene with mixed feelings. Because Sirius and Harry know each other for an hour more or less, when Sirius offers a life changing decision. Harry is not to blame – he is a child after all, getting the chance to get away from his abusive home. Sirius however… it has not been his plan to prove his innocence, and to get back his old life. He wanted to kill Peter and that’s it. So it is only after Harry’s choice to spare Peter’s life that he comes up with this plan. I think he tries to respect James and Lily’s wishes here and the responsibility they gave him when they made him Harry’s godfather. They had chosen him to raise Harry when something would happen to them, and Sirius tries to make up for that promise. And he still leaves the choice up to Harry, but… this happens within minutes after Harry decided to trust him. It is a spur of the moment decision, and Sirius should have at the very least discuss this idea with the Dursleys before he talked to Harry about it. Because Sirius can’t know yet how the Dursleys treated Harry, and for all he knows they could be a loving family. He might had some suspicions, based on what Lily might have told him about her sister, and that he saw Harry running away from the Dursleys the summer before. Still, it is something he should have discussed with the adults responsible for Harry, before discussing it with Harry himself.


  * _“[H]is mother was screaming in his ears … she was going to be the last thing he ever heard”_ – Ironically if Harry had died as an infant this would have been the last thing he had ever heard. This entire scene – Harry, Hermione and Sirius surrounded by Dementors – is still one of the most terrifying within the series. And the Dementor almost kisses Harry, because they don’t care who is innocent or not, maybe they can’t even tell humans apart, because all they care about is to feed. They are monstrous in the most pure way, because they never chose to be evil, they just are.




	21. Chapter 21: Hermione’s secret

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 21: Hermione’s secret**

  * _“And yet – is it good for him to be given so much special treatment? Personally I try to treat him like any other student.”_ – There is some truth to it, as Snape treats all his students horribly, except for the Slytherins.


  * _“Harry stared up into the grave face and felt as though the ground beneath him was falling sharply away. He had grown used to the idea that Dumbledore could solve anything. He had expected Dumbledore to pull some amazing solution out of the air. But no … their last hope was gone.”_ – Dumbledore is, within Harry’s perspective, but also largely seen by the wizarding community, an almost God-like figure. And this is not just based on his powers, but the immense trust that Dumbledore will always make the right choices, and will always have a solution, even if everything seems hopeless. This marks the first time where he apparently doesn’t know what to do next, where he seems fallible. In the Harry Potter series the children are forced to grow up at a very young age, because of how their school system works, but also because in the later books a war is going on, forcing them all to make choices no child should have to make. And among all Dumbledore is build up as the big protector and saviour. Hogwarts is build up as the safest place on earth, but this safety is due to Dumbledore. With him gone Hogwarts becomes a place of terror as well. And with Dumbledore’s death also starts Harry understanding that Dumbledore was human after all, that he made mistakes, and that because of who is he is, those mistakes have very serious consequences. Their relationship has never been healthy – Harry puts a blind trust in Dumbledore and Dumbledore did manipulate Harry, knowing he was needed for a greater goal.


  * I love how Dumbledore was super vague, instead of just telling Harry and Hermione to save Buckbeak, so that Sirius could escape on him. Thank God Harry had one of his smarter moments and figured it out.


  * I love that in a book that is so much about the past we learn that it is impossible to change the past. Everything Harry and Hermione do has already happened. Because it isn’t just about the past – it is about letting go of the past. Snape has never learned to let go, the same way Sirius still lives in the past. He tries to rewrite the past, tries to make things right again, but fails. Harry learns more about his past, especially his father, how he is a part of Harry, and how this shapes his identity.


  * _“It was time for the rescuer to appear – but no one was coming to help this time – And then it hit him – he understood. He hadn’t seen his father – he had seen himself”_ – This is such a powerful moment, when Harry realized that it had been himself all along who saved him. And this is an ongoing theme – Harry has people around him who try to save him and protect him, but ultimately he saves himself. And it is another step in him coming of age – to realize that there is not always someone around to save him (not Dumbledore, not his father), that the person he has to rely on is himself. It is a lesson we all have to learn, an important lesson, though most of us learn it much later in life. Accept help whenever it is offered to you, but at the same time trust yourself, and more importantly save yourself.




	22. Chapter 22: Owl Post Again

**_Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_   
**

**Chapter 22: Owl Post Again**

  * Leave it to Snape to lash out in the only way he has left by telling everyone that Lupin is a werewolf, knowing very well the consequences of it, namely ruining Lupin’s life.


  * _“‘You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night.’”_ – Grief and loss are major themes within the series, but we also see how different Harry experiences them, for example comparing his parent’s death and later Sirius’s death. Harry never knew his parents – and prior to this book all he had were some photos and people telling him how great they were. Getting to know Lupin and Sirius, who had known his father so well, brought him closer to Harry. Of course their image of him is biased (the same way Snape is biased when it comes to James), but it is something. James feels real in a way he hadn’t before. And it is hard to miss or grief someone you had never known – all Harry has left is a great “what if”. The realization that his Patronus is his father is such a deeply touching moment, because it shows that a Harry had carried a part of his father with him all the time, even though he was unaware of it. Death is not the end, as long as we find ways to carry those we lost with us, as long as they are still a part of who we are.


  * _“But the thing that was lowering Harry’s spirits most of all was the prospect of returning to the Dursleys. For maybe half an hour, a glorious half hour, he had believed he would be living with Sirius from now on … his parents’ best friend … it would have been the next best thing to having his own father back.”_ – Looking back I think a lot of my love for Sirius as a child/teenager was because Harry loved him so much. Harry of course is biased when it comes to Sirius and blind to see his flaws. And Sirius is a deeply flawed character (and still a good man, because one doesn’t exclude the other). I’m looking forward to read Sirius’s story in the next book again, to see how my view on him has changed. I feel that Harry and Sirius’s relationship is quite messed up – they are bonded through James, but they also see James in each other. To Harry Sirius is the closest thing to his father, and to Sirius Harry is the closest thing to his best friend. But Sirius is not James, and neither is Harry. They both fail to see the other for what they are, putting expectations on each other that they can’t fulfil. Harry craves for a father, but Sirius can’t give him what he needs. Sirius is stuck in the past and marked by his time in Azkaban, and not fitted to take care of a child.


  * How is it possible that Sirius could have ordered the Firebolt in Harry’s name, but told them to pay from his own vault? Gringotts should have known to whom the vault belonged, so shouldn’t they get suspicious? Can you just order things and tell them to take money from another vault? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.


  * And that’s it. Onward to book 4.




End file.
